Investigation to find the shooter of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has been intensified after authorities recovered a "high-powered, bolt-action rifle" from woods on Thursday. Now, investigators have collected a home surveillance camera after a family said that the suspect may have recorded the person of interest in a neighbour's backyard.
According to Fox News Digital, a family member said that his camera may have recorded the suspect, who is on the run after killing 31-year-old Charlie Kirk at Utah University.
Officials and agents from the US bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives reached his home to collect the surveillance camera. One of the officials was seen climbing a ladder and removing the entire floodlight unit, including a home security camera.
“We think he ran down the alleyway, ditched his weapon, bypassed the fence where it ended and crossed through one of our properties,” said Erwin Steele, whose family owns several homes in the area, according to Fox News Digital. Steele’s brother owned the surveillance camera.
Rifle, prints among key evidence
The shooting occurred on Wednesday afternoon as Kirk, 31, founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA and a father of two, addressed a crowd in the university courtyard.
Investigators later found a high-powered bolt-action rifle in a wooded area near the route the suspect is believed to have used to escape, according to Robert Bohls, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Salt Lake City office.
Authorities also recovered a palm print, a footprint and an impression believed to have come from a forearm along the escape path.
Person of interest identified
The FBI on Thursday released two images of a man dressed in black they described as a “person of interest.” Officials have not said whether he is suspected of being the shooter, but urged the public to share any information about his identity.
The Orem neighbourhood, which sits just beyond a chain-link fence separating it from the UVU campus, has become a focal point of the investigation. Residents say the escape route may have taken the suspect through backyards before he vanished.
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